Oct 18, 2013

We wanted to come back to New York City for two reasons. The first was to catch up with a precious friend, prophet, priest and mentor being Father Chuck (Charles) Gallagher SJ and we had arranged to take him out to dinner and spend some more time together but that wasn’t to be as he died a couple of weeks before we got here. We lit a candle for him in St Mary’s yesterday evening,



The second reason was to visit the 9/11 Memorial to pay our respects for all the lives so needlessly lost and for the spirit of the American people in how they have and are dealing with it. We had witnessed the horror of 9/11 unfolding on our television as we were watching an episode of the ‘West Wing’ and at first assumed it was part of the show and were appalled to find that it was really happening. We saw the second plane approach and strike and the damage at the pentagon as well as hearing about the crash of flight 93 and we continued to watch with dread wondering where else in the world terror would strike and wouldn’t have been surprised if we had been witnessing the beginning of the 3rd World War. We hopped onto the subway and headed for the World Trade Centre and were surprised at the absolute sea of people who were making the pilgrimage. This is part of the garden of reflection as we entered the site. It was surprisingly peaceful.



The South Tower reflection pool. The Museum is the building on the right hand side and that won’t be open until spring 2014.



Work continues and it must be under incredible duress as this is an incredibly busy area with people, businesses and construction all on top of each other and a huge number of police and security personnel.



The north tower reflection pool. We saw a number of white roses on this one. The Memorial puts a white rose on each name on their birthday. There were also a number of personal mementos left like flowers and rosary beads.



A shot from the Memorial Garden of One World Trade Centre Freedom Tower which is progressing well but still under construction as you can see from the construction lift right up the side.



And this is a survivor on the perimeter of the area. Rumour has it that in spite of losing a part of his back he didn’t even look up. We saw a photograph of him sitting in the rubble.



An unusual look at 5th Avenue. Life continues, steam diverted from under the pavement in front of the Louis Vuitton store and traffic continues.



We decided to revisit Central Park and see if there was much autumn / fall colour in the trees since we had seen some evidence of that in patches on our way in yesterday but alas there wasn’t much to see but I love the park. It is a real people park with people walking, jogging, picnicking, walking with prams and playing sport and you are barely onto it and the sound of the city and traffic disappear completely so a real sanctuary to escape to. This is a quirky tower on the perimeter of Central Park.



And a view of some of the skyline from the park.



And this is our driver Robert and his horse Billie.